I was in Kansas City this past weekend for a fly-by reception for my friend Chris Weeks. I was in town for all of 40 hours (maybe) and had to head straight back out, because I am getting married to Melissa Shinn this Saturday.
I got to KCI (MCI) at 3pm, because my flight left at 4:14 and immediately the flight was delayed for mechanical issues, so they were going to be between 15minutes and 45 minutes late.
We finally got on the plane, flew at 40,000 feet to Denver, CO. We started circling because there were some crazy winds on the ground and the runways were closed. Then we started to run out of fuel, so we descended into Colorado Springs instead of Denver. Once on the ground, the pilot said they had no idea when the plane would be able to go to Denver and if you wanted to get off the plane, go ahead. So I did, because I was in the last row window seat and my anxiety had kicked into full gear.
The drove us across the tarmac to the baggage claim and rental car area. I rented a 15 passenger van because that is “all they had” and headed to Denver. Melissa met me at the rental company’s spot, it is now about 9PM. I drop off the van and we get in live to leave the rental place.
When I finally get up to the gate with my old and busted ‘94 Camry, the guy looks at me and waves me to go ahead. So, I followed the car before me.
Apparently, the guy who waved me on was not “really” waving me on, because as I passed the through the little gate the spike strip popped up and slashed my right back tire and the guard arm slammed down on the roof of my car.
I jumped out of my car absolutely livid and screaming at the guy who waved me through. I told him to get a manager in front of me faster than as soon as fucking possible. He told me to wait. I said, “No you get a manager here, now”.
After about 10 minutes a manager finally appeared. Long story short, we screamed at each other for a while and I told him to go look at the video. When he came back from watching the video the manager told me I had been no less than 3″ from behind the car in front of me. I responded in kind that was impossible and ridiculous. I was so angry that I had to walk away from this guy because I thought I was going to do something stupid, so I went to put my spare tire on my car.
At this point, Melissa got out of the car. She told him she wanted to see the video. The manager started to rescind what he was saying after a lengthy explanation of how we would need a court order to see the video. He eventually gave into Melissa’s superiority and decided that we were going to get the van rental fee waived. We left and I got home at 10:30pm MST.
Sphere: Related Content
Truth be told, I was not going to go to StartupWeekend-Boulder last weekend. I was going to go camping with my Fiance. However, the weather worked out so that was a bad idea (wet tents and apartment life mean lots of mold). Not only that, but my friend Jason was all over me about StartupWeekend. At one point he seriously said,
You MUST go if you are serious about startups.
My first reaction to this was that Jason was just being obsessive. Turns out, my gut reaction was way wrong. I thanked Jason probably three different times for harrassing me (about 12 emails… seriously) to go.
Why did I thank Jason? Because, not only did I go, I pitched an idea that I had essentially thrown in the garbage and it took. By “it took” I mean that after we were all done pitching ideas, I had 4 people talking to me about it almost immediately. I didn’t have to make a political rally type sign or anything. I will say though, that if this didnt work out, I was very interested in @penguin’s idea for “Pools I can jump into, and parties I don’t have to clean up after”.
So, to backtrack a little, this is how startup weekend went for me:
Friday 9:00 AM
2 more emails from Jason about stupid Startup Weekend
10:00 AM
Signed up and registered after finding out about the weather, getting permission from the Fiance, and talking to Jason AGAIN about StartupWeekend.
5:00 PM
Jason shows up at my office, on the dot no less, and we leave for Boulder
~6:30 PM
I pitch my idea, LivingOffCampus to the group.
~7:15 PM
I have a group of about 4 guys who are interested in exploring the project more. We start talking, planning, scheming. I keep pitching to people who stop to talk.
Later that night
Bar time. Delicious Raspberry Wheat Beer
3:00 AM
Bed time, after talking about this idea that I was now completely invested in again.
Saturday morning through Sunday 6PM
Seriously, these two days are a blur. We planned, we coded, we planned, we ate lunch, we coded. By this time there were a solid 6 of us cranking out business plans, logos, functionality, market analysis, a WordPress plugin, an API, marketing ideas, logo, slogan, and T-shirts. Yes, T-shirts. Oh yeah, a slogan and a pair of shorts with our slogan placed right on the butt. (when you see the slogan below, you will understand)
By Sunday afternoon there were probably 8 or 9 of us who were seriously putting 125% into the idea. It was amazing.
Sunday 6:00PM
Everyone joined back up in one of the Leeds Business School’s classrooms that was build like a miniature auditorium with stadium seating, projectors and everything.
By this time, we all had our new SpotGrab.com T-shirts on and were standing in front of the rest of StartupWeekend-Boulder ready to present. Did I mention that the guys put together an amazing presentation on PowerPoint? Or that they had figured out, with our initial pricing estimates we came in 5-7x less per month in cost than our nearest competitor?
We presented the core product, the features we had, the wordpress plugin, threw out the extra T-shirts and the shorts. They all said, “Find your spot and grab it!”.
————
I talked with the group and everyone seems excited to continue with the project. It is an amazing thing, and it seems to have traction and momentum. Both of which I lacked when the project was called LivingOffCampus.
I hope that I continue to get to work with this great team that we put together, I have never seen so many people get so much done in such a short amount of time. The amount of drive, innovation, and tenacity that came with this group is unrivaled.
A couple of the amazing things that came out of the project:
SpotGrab Logo
SpotGrab Shorts
Best Marketing Idea. Ever.
Logo and “Best Marketing Idea. Ever.” Courtesy of Grant Grigorian
“SpotGrab Shorts” Pic courtesy of @heyrich
T-shirts and shorts put together by Dave Mayer
Startup Weekend
Also, just for good measure: Thank you Jason for pestering me to go to Startup Weekend. (Follow Jason on Twitter, he finally found some use for it!)
Sphere: Related Content